If your butt is sore from checking out this year’s Academy Award nominees, you are not alone. With an average running time just shy of 21/2 hours, the nine Best Picture pics are taking a toll on many a battered backside. So to combat this flagrant posterior abuse, Landmark Cinema in Cambridge is counter programming to our limited attention spans by packaging this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts into a diverse – and brief – night out at the movies.

There are two choices: animated and live action, each with five offerings and not a one longer than 29 minutes. That’s the good news. The bad is that these 10 films vary wildly in their quality and appeal. And, as always, each is subject to subjective interpretation. But there’s no denying there’s a little something for everyone, whether you’re a “Simpsons” fan (you’ll love “Maggie Simpson in the Longest Daycare”), a lover of anime (the Eden-set “Adam and Dog”), or a person empathetic to the trials and tribulations of youngsters growing up in war-torn lands like Somalia (“Asad,” with a cast consisting entirely of Somali refugees) and Afghanistan (“Buzkashi Boys”).

Of the two programs, the most rewarding – by far – is the animation collection, with nary a stinker among them. If you saw last summer’s latest “Ice Age” entry (my sympathies), you also likely caught the “Maggie Simpson” short that served as that feature’s opening act.

If you missed it, here’s your chance to see director David Silverman pack a horde of terrific sight gags, ruthless parody and “The Simpsons’” trademark heart into a 5-minute masterpiece that’s sure to rile tea partiers with the vicious swipes the film takes at their patron saint, Ayn Rand. In it, Marge drops Maggie off for her first day at the prestigious Ayn Rand School for Tots, where children are instantly divided into “gifted” and “average.” Being the daughter of Homer Simpson, Maggie, as you’d expect, is placed with the dregs of human existence, a place where students are constantly reminded they “have no future,” and the favorite plaything is a Raggedy Ayn Rand Doll. To say more would spoil the fun of watching Maggie learning to assert herself against her oppressors. Suffice it to say, if this one doesn’t win the Oscar, you can slap yourself in the head and say, “d’oh.”

A not-too-distant second is director John Kahrs’ warmly charming “Paperman,” about a young corporate paper pusher who by chance meets the girl of his dreams on a subway platform, but stupidly forgets to ask her name. Fate, the short’s recurring theme, again intervenes when he spots the girl in the skyscraper directly across the street from his office. How he goes about trying to capture her attention is as clever as it is heartbreaking.

Page 2 of 3 - The antithesis of young love is on display in Timothy Reckart’s “Head Over Heels,” a funny, poignant tale about a husband and wife who’ve grown so far apart, they’ve become opposites. She lives her life upside down with her feet firmly planted on the ceiling, while her hubby sloths around in his well-equipped wheelchair on the floor. Will their worlds come back together? You’ll need to see it to find out.

The other two entries, “Fresh Guacamole,” Adam Pesapane’s visually stunning take on disparate items (light bulbs, baseballs, hand grenades) sliced up into a salad bowl, and “Adam and Dog,” Minkyu Lee’s dreamy, monochromatic look at how the Earth’s first man – and first dog – met, are on an equal footing in terms of outstanding animation, but the narratives are severely lacking.

Likewise, weak stories are the downfall for a majority of the live-action shorts. They’re also a tad too preachy with their messages about Alzheimer’s (Yan England’s melodramatic “Henry”), mortality (Tom Van Avermaet’s creepy “Death of a Shadow”) and children with bleak futures, the aforementioned “Asad,” about a Somali boy being forced to choose between a life of sea piracy or becoming a fisherman, and “Buzkashi Boys,” an Afghan lad torn between becoming a blacksmith like his father or becoming a rider in one of the nation’s favorite pastimes, the polo-like buzkashi, in which a dead goat takes the place of a ball.

The only standout among the bunch is Shawn Christensen’s “Curfew,” which despite its downbeat beginning (a young man attempting suicide) quickly evolves into an affecting familial parable of second chances, featuring an outstanding performance by young Fatima Ptacek.

Not only does she steal your heart, but also the cold, dormant one beating inside the chest of her drug-abusing uncle (Christensen), who agrees to help out his estranged sister by baby-sitting, a chore that rapidly evolves into a joy for the family’s self-loathing black sheep.

My only complaint is that “Curfew” is pretty much a rip-off of the indie hit “You Can Count on Me.”

But the performances are so strong, you may not even notice. And compared to its four lackluster competitors, it easily stands as the tallest of the shorts.

Oscar-nominated shorts

Playing at Kendall Square, Cambridge, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

ANIMATION

“Adam and Dog”: Directed by Minkyu Lee; Grade: C

“Fresh Guacamole”: Directed by Adam Pesapane; Grade: B-

“Head over Heels”: Directed by Timothy Reckart; Grade: B

“Maggie Simpson in the Longest Daycare”: Directed by David Silverman; Grade: A